Undone (Wild Men 2)

I disconnect and put my phone down on the table.

Then I go check on Kaden. He blinks groggily at me when I bend over him, then grabs me and hauls me on top of his body as I squeal in shock.

“Hey,” he says, grinning down at me. He looks better than he has since I arrived, his face less drawn and pale. “Why are you dressed? This means I’ll need to undress you all over again. See, I forgot to tell you: in this apartment we don’t wear clothes.”

“Is that so?” I fight laughter, although the hard-on poking between my legs is serious.

“That is so, yeah.”

God, he’s so handsome. I lift a hand to his face, trace his mouth, his cheekbone, his eyebrow. “Hm.”

He lifts said brow at me. “What?”

“I’m staying here with you. Until you’re well enough to be on your own. I need to go and get a few things from, um, from my apartment.”

Jesus, I hate lying.

“You’re worried about me?”

“Yeah, I am.”

His gaze softens. “Then hurry up and come back soon. I really don’t know when I’ll be well enough to be without you.” He rolls his hips and his hard-on slides over my T-shirt like a hot poker. “Maybe never.”

Maybe never.

It sounds so much like a promise I smile down at him. I shouldn’t be feeling giddy over it, shouldn’t feel so happy.

And yet I am.

Part Four

UNDONE

Chapter Seventeen

Kaden

The apartment is too quiet without her. The silence hits me like a fist to the solar plexus. I remember it clearly from all the time she was gone.

Not that she was here often.

But I was at her apartment, in her bed. I love listening to her puttering about. Sometimes she sings to herself. Sometimes she mutters. I love catching glimpses of her going about, her hips sometimes swaying to music only she can hear.

Did I ever tell her how much I like that? How much I like her in my apartment, in my life?

I carefully get out of bed, cautiously make my way to the bathroom. I look at myself in the mirror and wince.

Yeah, I look like something the cat chucked up. Like a drunk bum off the street, my eyes bloodshot, my beard like a bird nest, my hair all tangled up.

Wincing, I unwrap the filthy, disheveled bandage from around my head and turn to examine the stitches on my skull. They shaved a small patch of hair to clean the wound, and I stare at it for a long moment.

Then I reach for the scissors.

My hand is shaking, so I take a moment to take deep breaths and wonder if I’ve gone nuts. What if she likes the hair and beard?

What if she leaves again tomorrow?

Ah fuck it.